The bough of healthy eating

Aversion and craving.  This is what wipes out the sprouts that never quite make it to bough in my growth.  Last week I wrote about how being in a state of high arousal can trigger some of the old habit patterns that I hold from living in ongoing trauma.  But of course, being in low arousal can trigger these too.  Being calm, the memories, the pain, the patterns, the sensations float up.  Being bored, which is the most challenging kind of low arousal state, is what triggers the craving for drama to shake things up.

I experienced this yesterday in my one day Vipassana retreat.  Of course I went into this hoping for peak meditative experiences.  I had one early in Anapana, my breath became so short and shallow it became like a small circular pump at my nostrils, and breathing became more like a quiet, beating pulse than a whole body process.  I became anxious, but with equanimity, I was able to see how this quick breathing could really help me in reacting to the inevitable stresses that arise when the past aversions and cravings arise.

Aware, equanimous. Goenka's sonorous voice became a one two anti-punch, as I sat with the subtle waves of pleasure and displeasure.  Be aware of the sensation, respond with equanimty.  Break the cycle of proliferation of aversion and craving. Old habit patterns rise up.  New habit patterns take their place, and with diligence, ardent diligence, they take root.

I ate my lunch slowly, very slowly.  So slowly, I couldn't imagine even finishing a small and simple lunch I had brought, in the time that I had.  Not if I wanted to have time to go for a walk. If I could implant this new habit, the cravings and aversions that derail healthy, wholesome eating might have the chance of making it into a bough.  But I need to be patient. Boughs don't grow overnight.  I have the advantage of looking at almost seven years of data on my weight loss and gain.  I've gained a little over a pound a year to where I now hover at the cusp of overweight and obese.   I don't want to find myself a decade from now normalizing obesity.

But more important than that, I don't want to be driven by the hungry ghost that makes that happen.  I want to be driven by the awareness and equanimity that will reverse this trend. I want to look at this graph a year from now and see a cliff, then steady ground, maybe even a valley.  That can only happen if the cravings have dried up.  The ghost has finally been allowed to find peace.

But I want to look at this graph seven years from now and see the evidence that this bough of healthy eating finally got the support it needed to flourish and mature.

Building a bough

I've figured out some things this week.

I've been putting these posts in chronological form so that I can mould this into a book some day, and I'm struck by an insight I had in the first week that really frames this entire adventure.  Post-traumatic sprouts.  This was a phenomenon after the ice storm of '98.  The worst storm in Canadian history. The ice was so strong and so thick that many trees lost major boughs.  In subsequent years, sprouts would appear, but they weren't strong enough for life as a major bough. Rot would set in and they would die.

I grew up in a place of trauma.  My father was an alcoholic. His father a child who had to bear the entire weight of his father, the son of a single mother in Portsmouth, and WW1 veteran who never successfully reintegrated with the family on his return from arguably the worst war in the history of humanity.  My mother the daughter of an Irish Catholic immigrant mother who never said the words "I love you" her entire life, and a loving, but spoilt Glaswegian.

My parents marriage was an ice storm that is still going on.

Some days I feel like a trunk with spindly branches and rotting sprouts that never make it into branches.  But some days, I recognize one bough that is strong enough to support a lot of aborted growth: my meditation practice.  And on another day, I recognize another bough: my writing practice.

I'm reading a fascinating book right now, How Emotions are Made.  The theory, and it's a good one, is that our bodies are in a constant state of flux that is the interaction of Valence, the pleasure/displeasure values, and Affect, the calm/arousal values.  Low arousal and pleasure, for instance is a state of serenity.  High arousal and pleasure is elation.  Medium pleasant is gratitude.  High arousal and displeasure is distress.  Low arousal is depression.  Medium unpleasant is garden variety misery.

Graphing my meditation practice to this, I realize that sitting meditation puts me in low arousal.  Standing puts me in high.  I did both this morning and I can clearly see the difference. I can feel the high arousal that courses through my body.  It's even stronger that walking.

To build some other boughs, healthy eating for example, I need to be able to achieve equanimity within the entire spectrum, because when I'm triggered, I eat.  And I need to stand, because sitting meditation on its own risks keeping me is such a low arousal state that I'm still susceptible to depression.  Another reason I eat.

If I'm going to finally make peace with the hungry ghost that lays waste to every effort at growth that I make, I need to construct a place for both of these practices in my life and nurture this is though my life, and Ben's life, depends on this.  Because it does.

Back Together

If my morning journals are anything to go by, I'm getting more clarity and wisdom in my life. But, there's one sentence I wrote that rings true.  My ego continues to leap up, like a beagle my family once had, desperately trying to grab food from the dinner table. There's still a compulsion in me and in one moment, so if feels like, it can sabotage everything.

At least that's what it feels like at work these day, where for whatever reason, valid or not, I'm not feeling safe.   I'm tired of my ego and its paranoid storylines.  I'm tired of how much energy it takes to have daydream arguments with everyone in the company.  I'm tired of how much television it takes to numb the misery that it has created for me. I'm tried of eating my pain.

I want to be who I really am, this calm and steady and clear awareness. I want to feel pulled into the drama of subtle changes in my psyche.  I want to feel a healthy detachment from the dramas that everyone else is living in.

I want to stay committed to awareness of breath, nostrils, sensation in the body. I want to keep writing from that place.

Yet, I feel like I'm breaking up with myself.  When instead I'm reuniting with myself . When instead I'm coming home after decades of war.  And the self I'm coming back to has been keeping things safe, and loving.

Belief

From my morning practice journal:

It's hard to live with less thought, less belief in the storylines constantly being built in my heard.  But I get up every morning and meditate because I believe in something. I believe that cultivating calm leads to happiness. I believe in happiness. I believe that happiness is possible for all. I believe in the power of equanimity.  I believe that my peace can benefit and impact others.  I believe in the same way that my parents' hatred impacted me, my love can impact Ben and everyone in my life.  So I mediate and I write.
  What do I believe about writing?  I believe that it is a technology that can have a positive impact on life, and a negative one. I believe that it can make communication possible, that it can contribute to a conversation that will keep us sane and peaceful. That writing, optimized, can bring us to happiness. I believe.  So I write.  I get up every morning and I write and I hope that my clarity of mind will express itself in these words.  That my fine motor skills will develop into some kind of satisfying flow of mental effort. That this effort will encourage others to put effort into their lives.  I believe in the breath and in the fundamentals of life.  So I write because I hope that it is the expression of a clear mind an an open heart and an emerging wisdom and I hope that this wisdom will be useful to others.  I hope that I can be anchor so I want to see how this ritual will be an anchor for me. 

Deep Work

I'm feeling better now as I finish the second week of my cleanse and the last week of my digital de-clutter. 

I've started processing a lot of the agitation that I've been using food and streaming to avoid. I feel like I have more clarity at work.  Sometimes that means that I'm able to see that I like people, and they like me more than I think.  Sometimes that means I'm better able to see where my ego is sabotaging things.  I feel like I'm starting to re-discover the pleasures of deep work. 

So the plan now is to limit my digital activities to books and podcasts.  No streaming for at least a few weeks. I will do one more week of dietary cleanse and try to retain the habit of healthy breakfast and lunch.  Then the next big project will be cleaning my home. The hope is that in a body and environment that supports focus,  I will be able to make better decisions with how I use my evening time.

I'm reading Cal Newport's book on deep work.  I want to find better ways to guard my mind from shallow distraction.